Stephen's Biztalk posts

Three Tea Tour

On the 5th October I will be starting a motorcycle ride from the Seattle Centre...not much exciting about that...however, this particular ride will last approximately six months and take in Central and South America.

Each day I'll be stopping at 4pm to make tea for whoever is nearby and willing to swap stories of their lives in exchange for three cuppas, which I'll film.

That adds something to the ride. Next I'm throwing in a stop in Ecuador to help with a school programme of building and teaching. If you have any books that might help the kids, or old computers, please send them to the address at the bottom of this message.

In addition, because this was initially the three cups of tea tour, which I found clashed with a Greg Mortensen book of the same name, I've become involved in his work, which is to educate kids, of both sexes, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unlike the Madrasses, the schools that the Central Asia Institute build do not hold or teach radicalism. The CAI was founded here in Seattle with entrepreneurial support.

Two charities www.ikat.org and www.penniesfor peace.com support these educational innitiatives. If you feel like finding out more about them google the Central Asia Institute or buy the book, 'Three Cups of Tea'.

Now, here's my real intention for posting this message. The first ever NW Tea Festival is taking place on the 4th and 5th of October at the Seattle Centre with Tea movies...yes there are some...at the nearby SIFF. Come along, drink tea and wave me off on Sunday as I head with my teapot into the sunset (probably a bit earlier than sunset).

Finally here's the slighly pretentious part: Three cups of tea because cup one is an introduction, cup two is sharing understanding and cup three is friendship. My aim is to help overcome ignorance: Fear is ignorance: Ignorance is the enemy

Hope to see you, at the Tea Festival on Sunday 5th. I may even make you a cup of tea.

Here's the school that needs helping out. Contact: Jill Sare: “Little primary school, La Escuela 24 de Mayo de Las Cabañas de Ayampe, about 10 minutes south of Manabi, Ecuador"

No I don't know where it is either, but I'll have to find it somehow.

Thriller

http://www.seattlethrillers.com/

October is a worldwide celebration of the Thriller routine. Rehersals start soon, for dancers and none dancers. Check out the site above.

You know you want to do this...you really do...for no mere mortal can resist

Ha ha haaaarrrraghhh (In a Vincent Price style)

Tea in the Coffe Break

NW Festival of Tea comes to town on the 4/5th October, which also happens to be when I am setting off on my 6 month motorcycle ride around S.America on a tea drinking expedition.

Put both in your diary as I may well set off from this event and I'll have tea with folk that turn up.

Cheers,

Steve.

Undiscovereds

Unchainedworld.com is where you can promote unique venues and services that you have experienced. Undiscovered is a new section. Here you can add lists of places that are unique, but that you haven't yet visited.

What's the point of that?

Well, let's say you are part of an association of small independent businesses, you can add your associates.

Let's say you are a town or city tourist body, add the unique members. You can even place your own business in the Undiscovered section, so long as it's unique, operating from one location and that it gives people a sense of place or an aid to travel, so think beyond B+B and food, think relaxation, thinktravel gear, repairs, advice, communication points...

It's a way to make more folk aware that these places and services exist and gives them a wider audience than their ad budget might normally allow...because it's free.

www.unchainedworld.com

Wanted: Your memories...Offer: Other people's memories

www.unchainedworld.com is all about the places that come instantly and fondly to the forefront of your memory, when asked, "where have you been and where, or who you'd recommend?"

It's a collection of places that deliver a sense of place. It's an offering of services that have offered more service. And it's unusual in that it celebrates the unusual, the unique and the totally splendid.

In a world of standardisation and corporate conformity, www.unchainedworld.com is a refuge for the defiant, stand alone, sole trader, the mom and pop place, the dynamic start up and the slightly bewildered.

Unchained wants your input, the recommended people you input want your input, other people looking for input want your input, so please input...inputting is good and free and the best thing you can ever do.

Thank you.

Pies

There's a guy called Tom who has at a ripe old age just started his first ever blog on unchainedworld. His thing is finding good pies as he rides his motorcycle around the planet. I think he may be in Alaska, or certainly on his way there at the moment, and he's joining me for some of the 3 cups ride in South America later this year, in fact we are just trying to overcome the struggle of finding a large enough canoe to hold two big bikes and a pie filled Tom and I, for a trip down the Amazon.

Anyhow...he wants pie recommendations, either here at Biznik or at www.unchainedworld.com as comments on his blog. I keep telling him steak and kidney, but he insists on fruit!

I think we are going to help build a school in Equador, so anyone got a hammer?

Unchainedworld.com

Whilst I've been a Biznikwit for a time, Unchainedworld.com is new...well in so much that it finally got finished to a stage where we aren't ashamed to expose it to the masses.

Unchainedworld.com is the result of my motorcycle riding and travels and a desire to gain a sense of place where ever I am. That, and a form of atonement for having spend quite some time helping a fast food chain develop a standardised culture and production path, which is the antithesis of everything I believe in.

So, Unchainedworld takes your recommendations for unique services and places that a traveller may wish to avail themselves of. Logs them, adds a map and then enables others to plan routes that take in these oasis' of local flavour. It's a totally free exercise and we will be giving random prizes for the most outlandish unchaineds, or the most unchained submitted. In addition, we are adding a feature where if you want to blog at the site and have us turn said blog into a travel ebook, we will undertake that for you, for a fee.

So please visit www.unchainedworld.com, add your unchaineds and feel a warm glow of satisfaction.

(Only one warm glow of satisfaction per recommendation. Warm glows can be substituted for any heat level of glow without prior notification. Warm glow may contain nuts)

What's a good response?

When I've worked on "fixed" products, a predicted response rate was always part of the calculations.

Today I've thrown a new website "out there" and have no idea what will constitute a good result. We aren't selling anything other than an idea.We don't want anything other than input, but have no numbers associated to success or failure.

Anyone been through this?

Oh yes and to help with the numbers: visit www.unchainedworld.com then you'll see what it's about and why measuring is a challenge.

Unchainedworld.com launch on Thursday

Achieve an unbelievable sense of well being by sharing unique places with others. Only recommendations, no critics.

Just sharing info on what you think is worthwhile.

Okay it's intended to be a big database of places to travel to because they are special in someway, but there is the underlying ethical skeleton. If enough folk recommend those who use local produce, have ethical output and support their communities, then that recommendation can help support their activities (beyond the normal limited advertising budgets these folk have). It's word of mouth, or text of keyboard support.

www.unchainedworld.com goes live this Thursday, please pay a visit.

www.unchainedworld.com launches this Thursday

May 2006 I bought a motorbike in Atlanta and rode it back to Seattle. Big Deal!

I only stopped at unique venues and kept off the interstates. It took 47 days and 10,000 miles, plus an idea that there's a lot better places to visit than the major, could be anywhere, fastfood outlets and motels.

Unchainedworld.com was formulated. It launches on Thursday and needs your recommendations.

There's more to it than that of course, but that's where the site comes in.

Cheers

Unchainedworld

Last year as part of emigrating to the US from the UK, I took a m/cycle ride acrosscountry starting in Atlanta. 10,018 miles of circuitous riding later (only 22miles on Interstate)I'd appreciated that I'd chosen to avoid chain restaurants and accommodation and to sample unique-unchained-services instead. Some were okay, others were aweful and a few were exceptionally good, but and here's the key to enjoyment...none were bland.

I'm putting a website together, www.unchainedworld.com where recommendations for other unchaineds can be made by you. I'll add mapping and gps so you'll be able to plan unchained routes of your own, so what I need are your recommendations@unchainedworld.com

It's global, so remember holiday locations count too and a recommendation can be for a single aspect of a service, so a fluffy soft bathtowel is just as worthy of recommendation as a full suite, a flaky buttery biscuit is equal to an a la carte banquet.

Help banish the bland, become unchained. Thanks.